President-Elect Trump's 60 Minutes Interview, Friday 11 November 2016

in the 60 Minutes interview from Friday 11 November 2016:

Trump claimed to have won the election easily -- "won it easily, easily" -- even though he lost the popular vote.  how is that winning it easily -- with not even the majority of the popular vote ? ? ?

'Build The Wall' becomes 'Build A Fence' -- Trump said he would accept a fence for certain areas.

'Deport All 12 Million Illegal Immigrants' becomes 'Deport A Small Fraction Of Illegal Immigrants' -- no surprise there.

'Repeal Obamare' becomes 'Keep A Lot Of Obamacare' -- also no surprise.

Trump admits his transition team is made up of lobbyists (whom he decried in election speeches); he's already sold out, and he's not even president yet.

'Overturn Roe v. Wade' and 'Criminalize Getting An Abortion' become 'I'm Pro-Life; Let The States Decide' -- another promise down the drain.

Trump things protestors against his election are paid professionals, not regular people.  sure, Donald; where's *my* paycheck?

Trump admits to not following current news.  what a shock.

'Prosecute Hillary Clinton Over Emails' becomes 'I'll think about it' -- whoosh, another promise down the drain.

Trump...
   still won't release tax returns.  what a wussy coward.

   still thinks he knows more about ISIS than the generals.

and my final question:  will 'Support The Working Class' become 'The Working Class Doesn't Deserve $15/hour Wage' ? ? ?  we'll see if Trump will stand behind raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

We Can Survive Trump

now we have a firsthand experience of how someone like Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in the 1920s & '30s.  hate still wins elections.

but we survived Hitler.

so we can survive Trump.

maybe next time we can elect someone based on love -- love of our immigrant neighbors and of people of different religions.  remember, we are all immigrants to this land -- even Native Americans have only been here for ten or twelve thousand years.

and we are all of different religions -- religious tolerance and religious freedom were what the United States was supposedly founded upon.  remember that the next time some huckster tries to feed you hate-based rhetoric.

Time To Move On

ok, so now it's time for Plan B -- if we can survive eight years of George W. Bush, we can survive a Trump presidency.  maybe he'll surprise us and go back to some of his former values; at least we can hope.

and it will be a lesson about the results of people casting protest votes [i.e., voting for a 3rd party candidate, even though you know they can never win] instead of simply abstaining from the vote because you couldn't choose between the two people who could possibly win.  (or they could do some more research and make a meaningful choice.)  i understand protest votes; i voted for Ross Perot back in '92.  oh well.

next time people will simply choose the lesser of two evils.

once upon a time, Trump was for a single-payer healthcare system -- probably the most effective method of containing rising healthcare costs -- but it would mean taking massive profits away from fat insurance companies (who sell both health insurance to individuals and malpractice insurance to doctors).  single-payer would be nice (and malpractice reform, while we're at it), but i'm not holding my breath.

Third Time Pays For All -- RIP Donald Trump Presidential Campaign

wow, watched the tape of the third presidential-candidate debate.

as Bilbo Baggins said (quoting his father, i think), "Third time pays for all."

Trump is really shoring up his 38% base; he's seemingly given up on attracting any other voters.  he won't trust U.S. intelligence; he won't acknowledge anything which doesn't agree with his ideas or opinions.  a scary, scary man.  but not much of a debater.

he seems almost proud of his ignorance, which is perhaps the most frightening of all.

and Hillary Clinton seems well prepared, articulate on a variety of topics, and so much more presidential than Donald Trump ... infinitely more.

RIP Donald Trump Presidential Campaign

Never Forget . . .

never forget the (extremely) complex Cold War (et cetera) context of the 9/11 attacks:

• the Soviet-Afghan War (which lasted from December 1979 to February 1989 and had between 850,000–2 million civilian Afghan casualties and caused millions more to flee the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War


• which shaped Osama bin Laden (who grew up in the resistance to the Soviet-Afghan War)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

• who became a part of Al-Qaeda, a jihadist organization that grew out of the latter part of the Soviet-Afghan War and goes from being regarded as a hero to a terrorist as the Taliban takes control (and a lot of complicated stuff in the 1990s, including the Afghan Civil War).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%9396)

and watch a slide show for a pretty good overall wrap-up.  slideshow http://slideplayer.com/slide/10620708/

End of Sabbatical

Sometimes i like to think of myself of having been on a sabbatical leave ... for the last twenty-five years.

Maybe it seems like a long time.  But that's how long it took me to work through some stuff, how long it took me to be able to move onto the next stage of my academic career.

Sure, it's not traditional — not much of what i've ever done followed any specific tradition; it's mostly been my own way.

During my sabbatical, i read ... a lot.  I studied many different things.  I took classes — in Philosophy (Symbolic Logic 1 & 2), Folklore, English, Weight Training, Critical Theory, Linguistics, more English, more Linguistics (Syntax), Creative Writing, Computer Science (Intro to CS in Java 1 & 2), and more Philosophy (Philosophical Foundations of Cognitive Science) — at different schools (UNC Chapel Hill, ASU Tempe, Framingham State, Tufts University) after my undergrad degree at Cornell University.

So what if i went from undergraduate straight into an extended sabbatical leave?  No law against it.  It's what i needed.

Now i'm ready to go back to work (on my own terms, of course), ready to make my contribution to society.

Establishing a 'Maximum Wage' in the United States

If we (in the United States) have a Minimum Wage, perhaps we should also have a Maximum Wage.

How much is enough for one person to earn?

Perhaps 10 million dollars per year.  A starting point for a conversation, at least.

Why should (or shouldn’t) there be a limit?

If we established an upper limit (above which all income would go into a general tax fund, so that low-earners wouldn’t have to pay any taxes, depending on how much was in the fund), what would be the general economic effects?

Imagine if anyone making under $50k per year (or whatever $ amount, depending on the Maximum Wage tax fund) didn’t have to PAY taxes — imagine how much more they would have to spend!

Worth considering!